Psychological phenomena explanations

Now that you have reviewed and written your case study’s psychosocial history, our next step is to provide a psychological explanation for why this person committed their crime(s). As we know, psychological theories provide a framework to explain psychological phenomena. In this assignment, you will continue your case study of the criminal you chose by reviewing (1) an evolutionary theoretical explanation of the crime(s) committed, and (2) a traditional theoretical explanation of the crime(s) committed. More specifically, your assignment will need to include the following:

Evolutionary Explanation 1. Review how crimes can be understood as either an adaptation, byproduct of an adaptation, or a disorder. 2. Decide whether you think your criminal’s behavior is best understood as an adaptation, byproduct, or disorder, and explain why you think that is the case. 3. As part of your explanation, be sure to review how the behavior might serve a survival/reproductive function (adaptation), or is a byproduct of another function (byproduct), or is a psychological mechanism that is malfunctioning (disorder). 4. To further support your points, cite how researchers in this area have applied evolutionary principles to the specific crime(s) committed by the criminal you chose.

Traditional Theoretical Explanation 5. Choose a traditional (i.e., non-evolutionary) theory of crime and describe how that theory explains criminal behavior 6. Explain how this theory can be applied to your criminal.

Decide Which Theory is Better 7. Based on your review, of the two theories you reviewed, which one does a better job of explaining your criminal’s actions? Elaborate on why you think this is the case.

It is possible that your criminal committed more than one type of crime (e.g., homicide, sexual offenses). In this case, you will need to evaluate whether the theory can explain why they committed those multiple types of crimes.The sources of information for this paper again is quite varied — it can come from peer-reviewed journal articles and edited chapters, but can also come from news articles, books, and online articles. Use PsycINFO, google (scholar, news), to search for appropriate sources of information. If journals or books are not available at our library, use interlibrary loan or check scholar.google.com.

 

 

The page limit for this assignment is 6 pages, double spaced, 12-point font. This page limit does not include your title page or a references section. Be sure to use APA formatting for the title page, citing authors, and the references page (you will be graded on APA formatting). You will also be graded on spelling, punctuation, and clarity of expression.